Does God have a language?

**f0rTyLeGz** · 02-08-2009, 07:45 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: CEW</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
I agree, but consider that if I take your argument to the logical conclusion, it says that if God has a language it had to be developed from somewhere, or by somebody, or some culture. </div></div>
I agree. No being can just <span style="font-style: italic">know</span> a language a priori. When you say that...

"The problem is you're trying to bring God to the level of humans and saying if the development of language among humans is the product of culture/society, then it must be the same for God. I disagree with that premise primarily because the Christian God we are talking about is said to be omni-everything, and so is not bound by the same limitations, or required prequisites for something to happen, as humans are."

... it would seem to me that there must be some logical limitations on what "omni-everything" means.

Intelligence requires language. Language is a product of society. Therefore, before there were people there were no languages... and no intelligence.

It seems to me that intelligence can't stand by itself. Intelligence can't be static, and postulating a single being that knows everything, and can do everything, is creating an end to knowing. It's a verbal black hole where even though you can say it, when you think about it, it means nothing. Like "eternal life." Nothing is eternal... especially life... and words.

Doesn't being intelligent means having answers? Can you have answers without words going in, and words coming out? I don't think that a feral person could ever be defined as "intelligent."

There was a recent article on the possibilities of "intelligent life" in the universe in the BBC. The scientist, Duncan Forgan says, "If alien life forms do exist, we may not necessarily be able to make contact with them, and we have no idea what form they would take." Link

I think if there is "intelligent life" out there they will have languages. They will be noisy.

I apologize for taking so long to reply.

**f0rTyLeGz** · 02-08-2009, 09:45 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sukuna</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I believe that we created God and not the other way around. Therefore he is so powerful to be able to speak every single language on earth so long as that language supports him. He speaks through signs, events, appearances like angels which alone suggest body language. Handwritting appear on walls and everything that a human can conceive is the work of God.

In other words, if in a language the word "God" does not exist, there is no God.

</div></div>
I agree, language "creates" God, or gods, by naming him or them, or her. And great point that once they are named, then they "exist" until the language dies. That's positively liberating.

Haven't we all been a little spooked by the constant "voice" in our minds?

Plus, when we are talking there is usually someone who we are talking to. So if, like you suggest, that once we create God in our language, we use his power to answer many questions. I think that many of us, especially in the past, felt like, imagined, that that voice in their head, was "speaking" to God? God can "hear" that voice?

**Morpheous** · 02-11-2009, 06:27 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: f0rTyLeGz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What can we say about an intelligent designer (or a god who created us)? We can't say that the designer had to have a head and arms, and an opposing thumb, but we can say that a designer needed words... can't we? No being can design without words. Well, not unless all of this is the creation of a designed robot. But whoever designed the first designing robot had to have a language I would suggest.

A language must be learned from others. Languages evolve, and an intelligent designer of our world would have to be the product of a language more sophisticated than ours is at this time.

Is it logical to give an intelligent designer these attributes? Could an intelligent designer be intelligent without language? </div></div>
LOL. God said and I quote from the bible "let there be light"... and there was light etc. so God had to have spoken a language for humans since creation to undertand what he said?? Isn't it?
I wonder who/what God was talking to/with?
Himself?

**f0rTyLeGz** · 02-15-2009, 07:56 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: More4us</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: f0rTyLeGz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What can we say about an intelligent designer (or a god who created us)? We can't say that the designer had to have a head and arms, and an opposing thumb, but we can say that a designer needed words... can't we? No being can design without words. Well, not unless all of this is the creation of a designed robot. But whoever designed the first designing robot had to have a language I would suggest.

A language must be learned from others. Languages evolve, and an intelligent designer of our world would have to be the product of a language more sophisticated than ours is at this time.

Is it logical to give an intelligent designer these attributes? Could an intelligent designer be intelligent without language? </div></div>
LOL. God said and I quote from the bible "let there be light"... and there was light etc. so God had to have spoken a language for humans since creation to undertand what he said?? Isn't it?
I wonder who/what God was talking to/with?
Himself? </div></div>
I suppose it is an obnoxious and spacey topic, and that is why it is so hard for me to get any people to talk about it in daily life or online.

My interest isn't in the capabilities of gods really... I don't believe in them, and Im just using them to try and get folks thinking about thinking... but language and consciousness intrigue the heck out of me. Language is so close to us, having language and knowing the name for things, seems as normal as daylight to all of us.

Ive come to think that language and is the most descriptive attribute that separates us from other animals. If you are awake, and don't have words running though your mind, you are either a vegetable or highly skilled at meditating.

"The exact definition of consciousness is still open to debate among academics."

404 - Page Not Found

http://www.reference.com/search?q=Conscious

It seems to me, that we have this amazing situation, all of us, of words running through our minds. Our language has evolved from all the words spoken before we lived, and these words exist only in the minds of humans. We inherit language through socialization... it's a part of growing up.

**f0rTyLeGz** · 02-17-2009, 05:46 AM

Re: Does God have a language?

I mentioned Nicaraguan Sign Language before in this thread and it in the science news today:

<span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="color: #993300">Deaf Children Use Hands To Invent Own Way Of Communicating</span></span>

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2009) — Deaf children are able to develop a language-like gesture system by making up hand signs and using homemade systems to increase their communication as they grow, just as children with conventional spoken language, research at the University of Chicago shows.

"Other studies on this 'homesigning' have usually stopped at the point the children go to school, but I have been able to follow children in Nicaragua who are not near a special education school and accordingly continue developing their homesigns independently," said Marie Coppola, a Research Associate at the University of Chicago, who presented her findings Sunday, Feb. 15 at a news briefing, "Languages without Ancestors," at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Coppola's research is the first to show that homesigning forms a foundation leading to more sophisticated, complicated communication.

The capacity of homesigners to adapt and improve their communication based on language learning underlies the growth of a new sign language, Nicaraguan Sign Language, which a community of deaf children developed independently at a school for the deaf in the country's capital of Managua, Coppola said. Homesigning is common throughout cultures, but Nicaraguan Sign Language is one of the few established sign languages that a deaf community invented and scholars have studied.

"Since 1996, I have been working with deaf adolescents and adults in Nicaragua who have not learned Nicaraguan Sign Language, but who have invented their own sign languages that they use with their families, friends and neighbors. I have learned that these small languages have many characteristics of languages that are signed and spoken around the world," said Coppola, who has videotaped and studied the interactions with colleagues.

Coppola observed Nicaraguans using gestures frequently when they spoke, and she noticed many, such as those used to describe eating, were consistent in their form. Deaf children are able to pick up on these gestures and their meanings, as well as invent others to communicate, she said.

In order to serve deaf children, Nicaraguan leaders created a special education school in Managua, but staffed it with teachers who did not use sign language. They tried to get the children to speak and read people's lips so they could better adjust to the speaking world. The children developed their own sign language as a way of communicating with each other.

"When children and adolescents first came together at the school (the Melania Morales School for Special Education) in the late 1970s, they brought with them their homesign systems. These signs and ways of combining signs into sentences that children used at home served as the seeds for the new sign language that developed as they began interacting with each other regularly.

"We do not have videotape of the earliest years of Nicaraguan Sign Language from 1978 to 1986. Therefore, studying homesign systems can give us an idea of what Nicaraguan Sign Language looked like at its very beginning."

Deaf Children Use Hands To Invent Own Way Of Communicating

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090215151441.htm

Deaf children are able to develop a language-like gesture system by making up hand signs and using homemade systems to increase their communication as they grow, just as children with conventional spoken language.

**rufian** · 02-17-2009, 07:05 AM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: More4us</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: f0rTyLeGz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What can we say about an intelligent designer (or a god who created us)? We can't say that the designer had to have a head and arms, and an opposing thumb, but we can say that a designer needed words... can't we? No being can design without words. Well, not unless all of this is the creation of a designed robot. But whoever designed the first designing robot had to have a language I would suggest.

A language must be learned from others. Languages evolve, and an intelligent designer of our world would have to be the product of a language more sophisticated than ours is at this time.

Is it logical to give an intelligent designer these attributes? Could an intelligent designer be intelligent without language? </div></div>
LOL. God said and I quote from the bible "let there be light"... and there was light etc. so God had to have spoken a language for humans since creation to undertand what he said?? Isn't it?
I wonder who/what God was talking to/with?
Himself? </div></div>
I do not think it was literally meant. The fact is the power come from the word. Hence, in the name of Jesus, just the name.
Light had to be named for it to "be", God had to be name for him to be. He is the head of the hierarchy. Humans had to have a language to create God to create Light. I also believe that nothingness is the head of the hierachy otherwise it is impossible to logically explain any Thing.

Ask modern* science how light was created. Sometimes I find it dumb to take the purely physical route to explain everything.
But ask an obeah man to create light, what will he do? na chant light? God was talking to light and whatever he was creating

**rufian** · 02-17-2009, 07:15 AM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: f0rTyLeGz</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sukuna</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I believe that we created God and not the other way around. Therefore he is so powerful to be able to speak every single language on earth so long as that language supports him. He speaks through signs, events, appearances like angels which alone suggest body language. Handwritting appear on walls and everything that a human can conceive is the work of God.

In other words, if in a language the word "God" does not exist, there is no God.

</div></div>
I agree, language "creates" God, or gods, by naming him or them, or her. And great point that once they are named, then they "exist" until the language dies. That's positively liberating.

Haven't we all been a little spooked by the constant "voice" in our minds?

Plus, when we are talking there is usually someone who we are talking to. So if, like you suggest, that once we create God in our language, we use his power to answer many questions. I think that many of us, especially in the past, felt like, imagined, that that voice in their head, was "speaking" to God? God can "hear" that voice? </div></div>
Well it is said that he knows all, it is even said that he speak through that voice, he and the devil of course. That voice is from self which determines him so it is one common source. Does it matters if sound is made? When I am thinking, I am hearing things when I am speaking I am saying things. You see what language can do? What is the difference?
We tend only to take responsibilities for our thoughts when others hear them. When I think in my head, that is not me it is that little voice or even God

**H_O** · 02-18-2009, 01:53 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

yep. he does. its called BS.

**rudemonk** · 02-19-2009, 12:42 AM

Re: Does God have a language?

what is your opinion about apes who can sign, 40?

also, before we were conditioned linguistically, we certainly thought.

**f0rTyLeGz** · 02-19-2009, 02:12 AM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">what is your opinion about apes who can sign, 40?</div></div>
Are you referring to this recent news? Link ?

I believe that apes have many signs for sure. And probably apes and birds and whales have signs and calls or whistles that are passed on from generation to generation. What differs with humans, I think, is that many of our languages are expanding, and growing...and, we are able to pass this now enormous learning on to some members of the next generation. Other animals that "have language" can't do this.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
also, before we were conditioned linguistically, we certainly thought. </div></div>

I'm not sure what you mean here? Do you mean that when "we were" Australopithecus three million years ago? Or, do you mean when "we were" newborn infants?

I guess I think that words like "thought" and "thinking", and "conscious," and "intelligent," are limiting. We need some new words.

Recently in a post Dr Dudd states how he enjoys just thinking .... Link. There was a famous parrot that died at 31 Link who had a tremendous vocabulary. But I don't think that the parrot used those words to "think" about things. Plus, the parrot could never teach those words it knows to another parrot.

Are newborn babies thinking? I don't think so. I figure that there are sounds and colors and feelings and scents that are hitting their senses, and at some critical point the sounds that parents and caretakers are making, start connecting with the infants sensory experiences. The baby hears it's own sounds, and this mimicking + organizing + naming language thing takes off. It takes several years, and humans are very vulnerable for these years, while this language ability grows.

To my way of thinking, thoughts imply words. I would enjoy hearing your ideas on thinking before we are linguistically conditioned?

**rudemonk** · 02-20-2009, 12:32 AM

Re: Does God have a language?

well, in art school we were taught to sometimes stop thinking in any modality other than visual.

in some meditative states in ch'an buddhism, you attain a kind of mental state in which thoughts sort of flutter out...you are left just being. I've only hit that a few times it is called 'no-mind.'

but clearly the mind is active, if we grew up with no language we would still have higher cognitive function...perhaps you are right and we need some new words.

animal 'languages' and signs had to evolve and grow from smaller beginnings...genetics apparently have a bit to do with this as well, as scientists have manipulated some genes in finches which render their noises unintelligible to other finches, so one has to wonder how exactly did they gain their 'languages.'

**rudemonk** · 02-20-2009, 12:58 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

do dreams roll out in language and are dreams thinking, or do we translate the visuals into language after the fact when we are consciously attempting to grip with them...

**rudemonk** · 02-21-2009, 02:56 AM

Re: Does God have a language?

hey 40...are you a fan of NPR by any chance?

there is going to be a show on languages that are on the verge of extinction which I thought you would find fascinating.

also found this on the site:

The Sound of Vanishing Languages

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14537549

A study based supported by the National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages identifies regions around the world where languages are dying. We hear some words from these disappearing languages.

**Morpheous** · 02-21-2009, 08:13 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sukuna</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: More4us</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
LOL. God said and I quote from the bible "let there be light"... and there was light etc. so God had to have spoken a language for humans since creation to undertand what he said?? Isn't it?
I wonder who/what God was talking to/with?
Himself? </div></div>
I do not think it was literally meant. The fact is the power come from the word. Hence, in the name of Jesus, just the name.
Light had to be named for it to "be", God had to be name for him to be. He is the head of the hierarchy. Humans had to have a language to create God to create Light. I also believe that nothingness is the head of the hierachy otherwise it is impossible to logically explain any Thing.

Ask modern* science how light was created. Sometimes I find it dumb to take the purely physical route to explain everything.
But ask an obeah man to create light, what will he do? na chant light? God was talking to light and whatever he was creating </div></div>
I was merely playing devil's advocate. It was not meant literally. The guys down here are used to how I put my points across. However your comment on god talking to light is funny.

**f0rTyLeGz** · 02-21-2009, 10:35 PM

Re: Does God have a language?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">well, in art school we were taught to sometimes stop thinking in any modality other than visual.</div></div>
Just had a flashback to an bit of a story about alchemy, and how you made lead to gold was to stir molten lead while not thinking of the word rhinoceros.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
in some meditative states in ch'an buddhism, you attain a kind of mental state in which thoughts sort of flutter out...you are left just being. I've only hit that a few times it is called 'no-mind.'</div></div>
For sure meditation has some real effects. I recall a few years ago there was a spate of news reports (link) about gamma brain waves and lasting benefits of meditation.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
but clearly the mind is active, if we grew up with no language we would still have higher cognitive function...perhaps you are right and we need some new words.</div></div>
Well, we have many fascinating stories of feral people. They get along after a fashion, and always imitate in a general way the animals that helped them make it through those vulnerable years, but they never really "get" language. And then there is Helen Keller, who did get language.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
animal 'languages' and signs had to evolve and grow from smaller beginnings...genetics apparently have a bit to do with this as well, as scientists have manipulated some genes in finches which render their noises unintelligible to other finches, so one has to wonder how exactly did they gain their 'languages.' </div></div>
There's got to be some "urge to imitate" the latest meme that is passing through the community that we eventually organize... er something?

Does God have a language?

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